The next great event in Bible prophecy is not the Rapture or Tribulation. It is the Second of the Four Signposts – Iran's great invasion of the Middle East. Are you watching? Are you preparing? Are you telling your brothers and sisters, pastors and elders?

Think Tank: Iran’s Preparations Confirm Second Signpost

Daniel Revisited chapter 10 gives a detailed account of how Iran is both fulfilling and will fulfill prophetic Scripture in Daniel 7 and 8 regarding the great invasion by Iran of the Middle East. This great invasion is coming. It is next. It is imminent. This is the Second Signpost. It is the great war to stretch across the Middle East. It will involve troop numbers not seen since Hussein’s war with Iran in the 1980s. And it will be a global game changer.

Daniel Revisited says of the forces to be used for Iran’s actual ground invasion of the Middle East,

“It will most likely be the IRGC that will use its forces to deal with various strategic targets when the invasion begins. I believe the Basij’s potential to overwhelm with its numbers will be behind the bulk of the invasion.” (Daniel Revisited, p. 199, TN edition)

Back in March, the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) IranTracker published a study showing that Iran is preparing for a conventional ground war. This style of warfare is very different from the IRGC’s past guerilla and terrorist tactics. The pdf of the study is downloadable here. It is titled Iran’s Evolving Way of War. It is a long and detailed report presenting a study concluding that Iran’s military is indeed training IRGC and other military units in Syria.

The report concludes definitively that the IRGC will indeed lead the invasion and the Basij will be melded into the forces of the invasion.

The Cover of the AEI’s report, Iran’s Evolving Way of War.

What got my attention about this report is that it was published by the AEI. It is one America’s most reputable global geopolitical think tanks, and one of the few institutions that I believe “gets it right” and truly understands the Iranian regime and military. I link to their site here on this blog.

The AEI article highlighting the study says right at the start,

“Iran is developing a new way of waging war beyond its borders using Syria as the laboratory.”

Iran is preparing for a conventional ground war using the battlefields in Syria to mold their organization and sharpen tactics for the IRGC and other Iranian forces. By watching casualties occurring from Jan. 1 2015 to Feb. 26, 2016, a pattern is emerging that shows Iran’s military strategy for ground fighting is changing and becoming more effective. IRGC units are being trained as cadre unites, i.e. each unit is a core of commanding officers that could have soldiers from any other force – Basij, Hezbollah, etc – melded seamlessly to the IRGC commanding unit. [Iran’s Evolving Way of War, p. 7]

AEI writes in the Executive Summary at the start of the report,

“We hypothesize, therefore, that the IRGC has developed the ability to send a unit cadre to Syria, implant it among groups of militias, and successfully lead those militias in extremely hard fighting.” [IEWoW, p. 2]

The Iranian IRGC is training their commanding units to meld with any group of foot soldiers. This training of IRGC cadre units in Syria accomplishes a second task as well. It is likely only the generals and colonels have war experience (from the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s). This exercise allows officers of all command levels from lieutenants to majors to get combat experience. A total of 1,500 officers were deployed to Syria as of spring of 2015. [IEWoW, p. 15]

Elements of at least six IRGC divisions have now seen combat.

Detailed information like this is usually hard to come by since Iran officially keeps the numbers of casualties from its headlines, but martyrdom is glorified and in this way the numbers are readily available [IEWoW, p. 4]. As the report says,

“Iranian officials have labored to conceal the extent of their involvement in the Syrian conflict, repeatedly insisting that they are only training, advising, and assisting Syrian forces. The announcements of Iranian casualties reported by Iranian media and social media tell another story.” [IEWoW, p. 2]

The report goes on to say on page 2,

“The data shows, however, that Iranian officers are unlikely to have been commanding Iranian troops in Syria, as there have not been enough casualties reported among IRGC enlisted personnel to account for the number of officers killed based on normal casualty ratios. We hypothesize, therefore, that the IRGC has developed the ability to send a unit cadre to Syria, implant it among groups of militias, and successfully lead those militias in extremely hard fighting.”

You see, what they have noted above is that the numbers of non-commissioned infantry soldiers must be very low compared to the numbers of commanding officers, because the casualties of the IRGC units in Syria are composed mostly of officers. In a typical army unit, the bulk of casualties are privates.

The report continues on page 2,

“This capability is a natural evolution of the IRGC’s own design: IRGC units are meant to receive reinforcements of Iran’s mobilized reserves (the Basij) in times of war. Conducting operations of this variety on foreign soil with a conglomerate of militias and across linguistic barriers, however, is extremely difficult. If the IRGC has, indeed, mastered this ability, then it has positioned itself to use small numbers of conventional forces on foreign battlefields to produce effects disproportionate to their size. It would constitute a significant increase in Iran’s ability to project conventional military power abroad.” [italics mine]

The Bible talks about the carnage Iranian armies will create. The bear is commanded to get up and gorge himself as he ravages and consumes going from country to country, place to place. It’s what bears do (see DR Ch. 10). And now, the IRGC may be setting itself up to “produce effects disproportionate to their size.”

The article concludes,

“This evolution in Iranian warfighting technique coupled with Iran’s stated intention to purchase advanced fighter-bombers from Russia indicates that Iran may be seeking to field a conventional military capability. It could seek to use that capability to challenge the armed forces of regional states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel directly in proxy wars.”

Well, the Second Signpost will indeed bring a challenge to the regions armed forces, and one so great it will neutralize every nation’s armed forces all the way to the Mediterranean, and down the Arabian Peninsula. The Persian ram will run to the north, south and west of Susa. It will also get to do all it wants to do. Its all in Daniel 8.

This report from the AEI is significant because what it does is show us that, what I suspected and wrote in Daniel Revisited is confirmed: the IRGC is not only going to command the invasion of the Second Signpost, but the Basij and whatever other militia they can recruit will be the bulk of the soldiers. These militias, whether Basij, Hezbollah, etc. will be melded to the commanding officers to form a great, zealous army ready to spread Ayatollah Khomeini’s vision of the Islamic revolution to all Muslim countries in the region.

7 replies

Developments of the scenario I first noticed in mid-80’s (which introduced me to the accuracy of biblical End-times prophecy) continue unabated. Thank you Mark for the Four Signposts theory of prophetic fulfillment and keeping watch…

Yet the same info seems to suggest that Iran is not yet ready.
It takes considerable time before all the arms they ordered in Russia are actually delivered and operational.
And how long will it take until they decide that a sufficiently large part of their IRGC cadre is combat trained?

Yet they can wait, time seems to be on their side, with sanctions lifted, and they seem to be capable of great patience.

Adamant,
Good comment and a good question. It could be months or years – don’t know. I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, Jesus told us to watch and that’s it. Not figure how long we have to wait.
I’ve been watching for the Second Signpost since 2005. I had originally thought it might come during Obama’s second term or on or around the Shemitah, but it could still be years out. And yet we must be ready for it tomorrow.

The AEI report is significant development in your realization of your second signpost, Mark. Iran will not make its move until it is sure of a successful outcome and therefore, will not be rushed. We all know that it was the ancient Persians who created the masterful strategic game of Chess. Except this time the chessboard is the nations of the Middle East. As you say, I thought Iran might do their blitzkrieg before Obama leaves office because he is such a weak president and his foreign policy has failed miserably in that region.

But God knows best and though Obama’s term is not yet complete, it may beyond his term before Iran makes its move. Continue to watch for significant movements to give further evidence of Iran’s intentions, Mark. You are faithful to report what you see as a time frame of Iran’s readiness to strike.

I’ve been reconnected online now and moved in…and now that that has happened unpacking will slow considerably and I must discipline myself back to unpacking starting tomorrow. Pray for me that I will be diligent at that task.

The similarities with the Iranian preparations you described above are striking: on the job training of cadre, using regular units together with irregular ones, etc.

The article suggests that NATO may not be prepared well enough for this to counter Russia.
I wonder if the same would hold for Saudi Arabia and other Sunni nations that mainly use Western weaponry, and perhaps tactics. Will they keep Iran at bay if it uses these very modern tactics?